Good Stuff

The blogosphere would be nothing without complaining, but sometimes it's worth offering a little praise. Dave Alpert likes the proposal for the new Wisconsin Avenue Giant, which features an elegant solution to the dilemma wherein supermarkets like big, windowless walls full of shelving whereas urbanists like exteriors to have windows:

South of Newark Street, the Giant will occupy most of the site. However, the project places several smaller stores in front of the store on both the Wisconsin Ave and Newark Street sides. On the Idaho Ave side, which is more residential, there will be townhouses fronting on the street.

Basically, a substantial portion of the supermarket is tucked into the block, giving it less exterior frontage and allowing everyone to get what they want (this is common, of course, in Manhattan supermarkets but those stores are much smaller than the supermarkets elsewhere in the country). That's not going to work in every space, but it's the kind of thing people should be thinking about as they design these projects.